Region Chops Sandy Debris Down to Size

A woman walks by debris from Sandy in the Rockaways on Wednesday.
Getty Images

By

Will James

Jan. 2, 2013 10:54 p.m. ET

The immense task of leveling the mountains of debris left behind by Sandy is coming into focus two months after the historic superstorm ravaged the East Coast.

In the end, the federal government estimates that 16 million cubic yards of debris piled up around New York and New Jersey—enough to fill the Empire State Building 16 times over—though more than half has yet to arrive at landfills.

Tons of refuse including sodden furniture, uprooted trees and smashed houses amassed at collection points in New York and New Jersey, where it formed towering monuments to the scale of the storm's destruction.

For weeks, one trash heap had filled about a quarter of the parking lot of Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways. By last week, it was all but gone, as Army Corps of Engineers contractors carted away 177,183 cubic yards of debris dumped at the park by city sanitation crews.

ENLARGE

A destroyed home in the Rockaways section of Queens, where much storm damage remains to be cleared.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

More

"It was a long haul," said Jimmy McGovern, a deputy chief of the city's sanitation department who is overseeing the cleanup of the Rockaways. "Now we're coming toward the end of it. We're seeing the fruits of our labor."

Mounds of debris made the Rockaways look like a "war zone" in the days after the storm, but they're now mostly gone, said Finbarr McDowell, 40 years old, of Rockaway Park.

However, he pointed to remaining work, including the removal of several burnt-out buildings and a lot full of demolition debris on Rockaway Beach Boulevard, near his apartment. "The cleanup is going to take time, you know?" he said. "It's tough. You can't blame anybody."

Even as some cleanup projects are wrapping up, others are just starting. Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the Army Corps of Engineers would begin overseeing removal of debris from Fire Island, the community of mostly summer homes off the South Shore of Long Island.

Cleanup on Fire Island presents a challenge because the infrastructure there is made up almost entirely of boardwalks and narrow dirt roads, the governor's office said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved $30 million for the project.

All in all, workers have cleared away about 4.2 million of the six million cubic yards of Sandy debris in New York state, estimated Mike Byrne, the FEMA coordinator overseeing the state's recovery. That includes about 90% of debris in New York City, he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers has overseen the cleanup of more than 330,000 cubic yards of garbage from sites primarily in the Rockaways, Staten Island and Red Hook, said Patrick Moes, an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman.

That refuse made its way to landfills in 10,813 truckloads, Mr. Moes said

In New Jersey, FEMA says the storm created about 10 million cubic yards of debris and three million has been picked up, according to Darrell Habisch, a spokesman for the agency's New Jersey office.

"We had 1.2 miles of boardwalk destroyed, all four pavilions up on the boardwalk destroyed, and then we had flooding in approximately 1,400 houses or properties, so that meant 1,400 pairs of washers and dryers, 1,400 furnaces," said Matt Doherty, the mayor of the seaside borough of Belmar.

The municipality worked to truck garbage out of neighborhoods and move it to the Belmar Marina as quickly as possible, Mr. Doherty said, because "the emotional and psychological effect of seeing debris just remain there day after day can be a detriment to the community."

As of last week, workers had trucked almost all of it—about 7,250 tons—from the marina to a landfill in Ocean County, Mr. Doherty said.

On Long Island, a company called Insurance Auto Auctions is storing about 15,000 storm-damaged cars from across the island on a pair of airplane runways in Riverhead Town, said Sean Walter, the town supervisor.

The site will gradually clear out as the vehicles are auctioned off, he said. "They are moving off the property at a greater clip now," he said.

In Long Beach, an oceanfront city on Long Island, almost every front yard was littered with ruined furniture and drywall in the days after the storm.

The city's public works department spent six weeks cleaning up the mess, and last week, front stoops and yards were visible once again, said Gordon Tepper, the city's spokesman.

Long Beach has received $24 million from FEMA for debris removal, but is hoping for more, because the city's total storm recovery bill is estimated to be $250 million, Mr. Tepper said.

Still standing is what local officials call Mount Sandy, a mound made from much of the sand that once filled the city's streets and parking lots after the storm. It towers over an oceanfront parking lot and rivals nearby six-story apartment buildings in height. The city is using excavators and dump trucks to chip away at the pile, hoping to get the sand back on the beach by summer.

This month, Long Beach will begin tearing down its entire 2-mile boardwalk, Mr. Tepper said. He said the hope is for that to be replaced by summer as well.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.